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Do fungi lurking inside cancers speed their growth?

nature.com

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Re: Do fungi lurking inside cancers speed their growth?

#21

Post by pmayrgundter »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #7
version_five wrote: post #2

Sometimes I wonder if we're just giant machines built by microorganisms. It would certainly make an interesting story, along the idea of a robot discovering they were made by somebody else, which I believe has already been explored

I mean it's a matter of perspective but... we are aren't we?

Basically agree.

There is an important part in what is meant by "machine".

Mechanics, strictly speaking, is pervasive in but not sufficient to account for the life process.

There's something else going on that looks like classical teleos and both the cells and the organism have it.

There's interesting work to get teleos out of mechanics in far from equilibrium thermodynamics.. Prigogine, Kauffman, Wolfram, Deacon, England even Dennet.

Re: Do fungi lurking inside cancers speed their growth?

#22

Post by adammarples »

seqizz wrote: post #13
version_five wrote: post #2

Sometimes I wonder if we're just giant machines built by microorganisms. It would certainly make an interesting story, along the idea of a robot discovering they were made by somebody else, which I believe has already been explored

Reminded me: > Animals are something invented by plants to move seeds around. An extremely yang solution to a peculiar problem which they faced. (Terence McKenna)

Animals evolved long before plants. What's crazy is that plants were arguably evolved by fungi using alga to farm sunlight

Re: Do fungi lurking inside cancers speed their growth?

#23

Post by maxbond »

CSSer wrote: post #5
version_five wrote: post #2

Sometimes I wonder if we're just giant machines built by microorganisms. It would certainly make an interesting story, along the idea of a robot discovering they were made by somebody else, which I believe has already been explored

I think you’re thinking of a Philip K. Dick short story. I’ll see if I can find it. Edit: I was thinking of autofac, which is kind of like what you’re describing but arguably it was only a small plot detail. People get downvoted for the strangest things on here sometimes. In this case it just makes me laugh.

Reminded me of The Electric Ant https://archive.org/details/PhilipK.DickTheElectricAnt

I have a hypothesis that commenters sometime interpret recommendations in this format ("I think you're thinking of X") as being presumptive, because it implies someone made a mistake in their thinking. I'm not trying to say it is or isn't, just that I've seen a pattern of similar posts downvoted, and this is my hypothesis as to why.

Re: Do fungi lurking inside cancers speed their growth?

#24

Post by 11235813213455 »

adammarples wrote: post #22
seqizz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminded me: > Animals are something invented by plants to move seeds around. An extremely yang solution to a peculiar problem which they faced. (Terence McKenna)

Animals evolved long before plants. What's crazy is that plants were arguably evolved by fungi using alga to farm sunlight

> Animals evolved long before plants

No

underwater: algae 3500MY vs sponges, worms, shells 800MY-485MY

out of water: plants 470MY vs millipedes, tetrapod 420MY-400MY

Re: Do fungi lurking inside cancers speed their growth?

#25

Post by adhesive_wombat »

CSSer wrote: post #5
version_five wrote: post #2

Sometimes I wonder if we're just giant machines built by microorganisms. It would certainly make an interesting story, along the idea of a robot discovering they were made by somebody else, which I believe has already been explored

I think you’re thinking of a Philip K. Dick short story. I’ll see if I can find it. Edit: I was thinking of autofac, which is kind of like what you’re describing but arguably it was only a small plot detail. People get downvoted for the strangest things on here sometimes. In this case it just makes me laugh.

There's also a short story by Stephen Baxter in Phase Space (a very excellent collection) called Dante Dreams where a researcher becomes aware of the dreaming consciousness of her own organelles.

Re: Do fungi lurking inside cancers speed their growth?

#26

Post by 11235813213455 »

seqizz wrote: post #13
version_five wrote: post #2

Sometimes I wonder if we're just giant machines built by microorganisms. It would certainly make an interesting story, along the idea of a robot discovering they were made by somebody else, which I believe has already been explored

Reminded me: > Animals are something invented by plants to move seeds around. An extremely yang solution to a peculiar problem which they faced. (Terence McKenna)

a nice example of cross evolution, random mutations of both life forms + natural selection, tasty seeds and animals eating them was a good combo

Re: Do fungi lurking inside cancers speed their growth?

#27

Post by ok_dad »

jvanderbot wrote: post #15
version_five wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or tricked into worrying about that as a control signal to perform its main task in service of its microorganism operators ;)

Nobody in this thread has read Selfish Gene, apparently. That's the whole point of the book: That genes may as well have invented all of life to propagate themselves. In this context, species conflict is like fleets of world-ships fighting total war.

That’s an interesting SciFi idea: the real world is digital, and digital beings have created a physical world to fight battle via genetic biological machines, which are effectively concrete data structures.

Re: Do fungi lurking inside cancers speed their growth?

#28

Post by hnbad »

BirAdam wrote: post #20
agumonkey wrote: post #12

AFAIK fungi are extremely hard to get rid of. This is not a great news.

That depends upon just how much you’re willing to put yourself through. Compared to cancer, fungus is easy to be rid of.

Yeah but that's because cancer is basically your own cells with faulty programming.

Re: Do fungi lurking inside cancers speed their growth?

#29

Post by 11235813213455 »

perfecthjrjth wrote: post #10
version_five wrote: post #2

Sometimes I wonder if we're just giant machines built by microorganisms. It would certainly make an interesting story, along the idea of a robot discovering they were made by somebody else, which I believe has already been explored

Yes, but with a twist: this giant machine worries about its future, its kids, its wealth, its financial assets.

my machine just worries about food, and work to get food
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